Playoff a stroke of luck for college football fans

The Associated Press Mike Slive, SEC commissioner, speaks during a media availability after a BCS presidential oversight committee meeting on Tuesday in Washington. The committee announced a new post-season format for a four-team playoff for the major college football national championship.

In a lifetime of following college football, I’ve learned it’s not often that the decision-makers’ priorities intersect with those of the fans.

They did last week, however, when a committee of university presidents approved a four-team playoff system that begins in 2014. And that’s worthy of celebration, though maybe just a subdued one.

I’m right there with most of the public in welcoming the presidents’ decision.

It’s been obvious for years that college football needed to allow more than two teams to play for the national title during bowl season. The Bowl Championship Series, in place since 1998, did its job some years in matching the nation’s two best teams in a title game. But most seasons, there were not two clear-cut, top teams. It was an inherently flawed system, and it’s about time that they changed it.

The four-team playoff will have its warts, but I think it’s the best format available.

Someone will always complain about being left out by the selection committee; just listen to the coaches who don’t make the NCAA’s 68-team men’s basketball tournament each year. But it was rare that a team, in my estimation, ranked No. 5 or lower in the BCS era actually had an argument for being the best in the country.

By keeping entry so exclusive, the new system will ensure that college football’s regular season remains the most important in major American sports.

So yeah, there’s a lot to like about the presidents’ approving the playoff.

But just remember that their decision was not made with your best interests in mind. We’re all just lucky that our desire for a playoff lined up with their financial interests.

The presidents — who, if you’re not aware, wield most of the power in college sports — didn’t wake up one day recently, realize that the BCS wasn’t necessarily giving us the right champion and decide that they must institute a playoff immediately.

Rather, they woke up after this past bowl season and saw that their cash cow was showing signs of running out.

Attendance has declined for major bowl games, due in no small part to obscene ticket prices. That has left the universities to absorb millions of dollars for tickets they are forced to purchase by their conferences’ deals with the BCS games.

The ratings for Alabama’s title-game victory over LSU were down as well. If those trends continued, the next BCS television contract wasn’t going to be nearly as lucrative as the schools hoped. TV networks aren’t going to pay if the public isn’t going to watch.

Having seen the writing on the wall, college football’s power brokers saw the potential revenue in a playoff — specifically the extra games that would help to decide a national champion. They took it this week. No surprise there.

Why didn’t they do it before? They were comfortable before, but then new economic conditions shook them awake.

It’s a money grab, plain and simple. And that’s OK, because it sure beats the alternative.

But just know that, as soon as it makes sense financially, this playoff is going to expand. (The four-team setup is part of a 12-year postseason deal reached by the presidents.) More games mean more money. Sounds basic, but there it is.

The larger the playoff gets, the less the regular season will mean. That’s a fundamental change to the sport that I would not welcome.

However this shakes out longterm, though, it won’t change the other things that make me care about college football: The rivalries, the wacky traditions, visiting my alma mater on a fall Saturday with hundreds of thousands of people — all of those old cliches.

That’s why I’ve always loved a sport that has never had a proper way of determining a champion, from the tradition bowl system to the Bowl Alliance to the much-hated BCS.

I’m glad that the powers-that-be decided to enhance my enjoyment of the sport for the next decade-plus, but I’m still wary of their reasons. Enjoy it for the time being, because you never know if it will happen again.

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